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AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Professional Role Restructure & Transition: Design, Delineation & Development
Dr. O'Rourke is a nationally known expert on the use of the professional role, especially that of the registered nurse within an interdisciplinary team. Her “Back to Basics” approach about role and standards based accountability paints a clear picture of the “pivotal decision making role” that registered nurses play in the delivery of quality patient care, and sets the stage for building strong role relationships within the clinical team.
Her expertise includes professional role development, role and standards based practice, decision making and critical thinking, therapeutic interpersonal and role relationships, role based interdisciplinary practice, professional practice model alignment with performance improvement strategies and outcome measurement, and ANA Magnet journey preparation.
As President and CEO of her consulting firm, Dr. O’Rourke’s goal is to create systemic change that supports the use of the professional role and ensures sustainable results in practice excellence and quality care. To achieve this, she assists organization’s with the redesign of their patient care model (PCM) based on an interdisciplinary professional practice approach (PPM) to care and care delivery. In this practice model, the professional role is the key decision maker who drives the care process.
She has developed an intensive, data driven and results oriented education and training program, which includes her role competence survey. Dr. O’Rourke helps clinicians improve decision making and critical thinking skills, and helps organizations link professional role and standards based practice to improving outcomes of care and reducing error using an integrated set of clinical, service, and financial indicators.
Over the past twenty-five years, she has provided consultation and educational services to management and staff within service and educational institutions. For the past fifteen years, Dr. O’Rourke has focused her attention on leadership and team development at executive, manager, and staff levels as a way to help them lead redesign efforts in their organization using an interdisciplinary professional practice model. Her vision is to demonstrate the link between professional role competence and improving patient outcomes.
CURRENT PROJECTS
1. Professional Role Development and Role Socialization Program™
A series of education and training programs for management, educators, preceptors, staff, and new graduates to build internal leadership capacity to practice, teach and manage to the ©O’Rourke Interdisciplinary Professional Practice Model, and prepare for the ANA Magnet Designation Award.
o © Professional Role Development Program (Basic and Advanced) is designed to increase knowledge and skill related to the professional role. This program assists staff, educators, preceptors and management with evaluating the degree to which the standard for professional role competence is upheld using a novice to advanced scale.
o © Professional Management Role Development Program is designed to clarify and develop the first line manager role and improves their ability to develop an environment supportive of professional practice, and monitor and evaluate patient outcomes related to clinical practice performance.
o © Patient Care Model Program is designed to guide the redesign and implementation of an interdisciplinary professional practice model that includes appropriate deployment of professional, technical and assistive care giver roles, increasing the critical thinking capacity of the team, linking outcomes with professional role competence, and creating positive role relationships with physicians
o © Inter Shift Report System Program is designed to reinforce professional role behaviors and standards based practice, improve the quality of information transferred between and among clinicians and link to improving outcomes of care
o © Role and Standards based Performance Evaluation System Program is designed to support role accountability, measure adherence to standards and link professional role competence to improving outcomes of care which includes five areas of practice; professional role practice, decision making practice, interpersonal practice, team practice, and organizational practice
2. Performance Improvement Strategic InitiativesÔ are comprehensive performance improvement strategies designed to guide management and staff, trained in the above programs, in their effort to lead the patient care model redesign and hardwire the system changes required to improve practice excellence and quality patient care.
RELEVANT EXPERIENCE
Dr. O’Rourke was instrumental in rewriting the California Nursing Practice Act in 1974, and published the first paper on its implementation that served to guide clinicians and managers in the appropriate use of the professional registered nurse. She has presented extensively on health care, education, and role and professional development issues. She is well known for her ability to create learning environments that motivate and challenge all members of an organization using her models and has a diverse background in organizational and program development, role redesign, change management, conflict resolution, and team building.
CREDENTIALS
Dr. O’Rourke received her B.S. in Nursing from Boston University, and her MS and a Doctorate of Nursing Science from the University of California, San Francisco. She was elected as a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing in 1985 and certified as a healthcare consultant by American Association of Healthcare Consultants in 2000. She has recently published two articles, Building organizations to succeed takes conviction (2001), Seminars for Nurse Managers; 9 (1) March, 16-32, 2005; and Rebuilding a professional practice model: The return of role based practice accountability (2003), Nursing Administration Quarterly, Spring (April-June) 2005; Leah Curtain (Ed) Vol.27, (2), 95-105.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Maria W. O’Rourke, Inc.
Post Office Box 512
Larkspur, CA. 94977
Phone: 415 461 1433 / Fax: 415 461 6132
morourke@rolebasedpractice.com
www.rolebasedpractice.com
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